So what does Deval Patrick’s memoir tell us about how black elites think? In my opinion, it is their conception of the United States as a “civil rights nation,” as Gov. Patrick articulates it in his memoir:

Ours may be the only nation in human history not organized around a common language or religion or culture so much as a common set of civil ideals. And we have defined those ideals over time and through struggle as equality, opportunity, and fair play.

This idea obviously has something in common with the neoconservative conception of the United States as a “proposition nation” having no ethnic or cultural core necessary to sustain itself.

To be “post-racial”, then means to be committed to this civil rights vision of America, though Patrick is smart enough to use the euphemism “civil ideals” for “civil rights.”

So when President Obama spoke at Miami-Dade College, he probably didn’t think he was saying anything genuinely treasonous. Rather, he believes this vision of America as a “civil rights nation” is the correct one.